UIO

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

Many of you who read this little blog know I work to be as transparent as possible when I write it.  And today is one of those days when I feel I need to be.

I am “off”.

My thoughts are “off”.

My energy is “off”.

I am struggling.

Really struggling.

I want to get back on track.

So, I went searching for a little wisdom and unearthed a little from a Pastor from the west coast, Daniel Fusco.  And he gives these 3 simple steps to “getting our groove” back.

I am going to try to employ them. 

Perhaps you need them too?

Step 1 – Start Upward

Deuteronomy 6:5 that we should “love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind.” I call this living upward. Getting your groove back has everything to do with living and loving upward.

Every relationship begins, and is ultimately sustained, by saying “yes.” We need to say yes to Jesus again and respond to Him. God loves you-- always has and always will. Even though you may be off track right now, God’s love for you has not diminished at all.

In order to see transformation happen in your own life, you  need to respond to God’s love by returning that love. So the first step back is to cultivate upward living by loving God with the totality of who you are.

Step 2 – Go Inward

Not only is it imperative to love God, but through God’s love, we learn how to love ourselves properly.

You see, what happens when we lose our focus on loving God, is we begin to love ourselves in unhealthy ways. We do things we shouldn’t, because we are redefining what self-love looks like. The vertical access, living upward by loving God, is the essential pace-setter for living inward by loving yourself.

When you love yourself without being fully devoted to God, things get messy extraordinarily fast.

You see the only way to properly love yourself is to see yourself through the lens of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross teaches us that we are simultaneously more loved than we can ever imagine and also more broken than we would ever care to admit. The cross shows us God’s amazing love because Jesus died for us. But it also shows us the depth of our sin--it’s so bad that Jesus had to die.

 

And the good news for us is that as we live upward by loving God, the Lord will reorient our self-love so we become increasingly healthy people emotionally.

Step 3 – Push Outward

The final step to getting back on track is to live outward by loving others.

As you live upward by responding to God’s love with love for Him, and then you begin to love yourself based on God’s love, the Spirit of God invites you to push outward to love others with this amazing love.

But living upward continually reminds us that God loves us, even in the midst of our messes.

And living inward teaches us to love ourselves, even though we are messy.

Then living outward directs us to love others, especially when they are messy.

And just like that, in three simple steps, you find yourself, day in and day out, locked into the groove of following Jesus.

It’s that simple: Upward.Inward.Outward.

There it is.

UIO. Going to give it a go.

HAVE A BLESSED WEEKEND!

LOVE YOU ALL

OPPORTUNITIES for HOPE